The Fault Is Not In Our Stars

“But in ourselves.” A quote EA seems to be taking to an entire new level.

This is going to be a big one ladies and gentlemen. Many of you are no doubt well aware of the abysmal failure of Sim City’s launch, and the intense backlash against EA and Maxis that has spawned because of it. However the story gets more interesting as EA CEO John Riccitiello resigns, EA’s failing stock prices begin to rise, EA and Maxis defend Always Online DRM, EA COO Peter Moore goes on the defensive personally, Analysts for EA stockholders point out problems, and EA and Maxis apologize and offer free games.

Like I said, this is going to be a big one, and I will apologize right now for how long this article is going to be, but lets get started from the top:

The launch of Sim City has been stated to be one of the most disasterous game launches of this game generation, perhaps even putting Diablo 3’s ERROR 37 to shame as gamers report file corruption, server mismatches, progress being lost and key features being disabled and removed in an effort to salvage the launch. The sad truth was everyone predicted this long before it happened, perhaps making the utter failure of EA’s servers to cope all the more insulting. It was then quickly discovered that a modder by the handle UKAzzer cracked the game, removing the online requirement and fixing the majority of bugs and problems in one fell swoop which has poured more fuel onto the fire.

Naturally the ability to play the game offline with no repercussions, other then the ability not to be able to go online, directly contradicted statements from Lucy Bradshaw, General Manager at Maxis who stated “It wouldn’t be possible to make the game offline without a significant amount of engineering work by our team.” Her evidence was that the entire region was simulated server side, but that claim itself was debunked by a Maxis Developer, reporting to Rock Paper Shotgun, stating:

“The servers are not handling any of the computation done to simulate the city you are playing. They are still acting as servers, doing some amount of computation to route messages of various types between both players and cities. As well, they’re doing cloud storage of save games, interfacing with Origin, and all of that,” the anonymous source said. “But for the game itself? No, they’re not doing anything. I have no idea why they’re claiming otherwise. It’s possible that Bradshaw misunderstood or was misinformed, but otherwise I’m clueless.”

In keeping with Lucy Bradshaw’s response Peter Moore had the following to say to other members within the industry, questioning the ‘vision’ of Maxis and EA in their defense of Always On-DRM:

Refund requests began pouring in for Sim City, with a few users going so far as to demand a charge back for the game, which is very much against policy. Here we should stop a moment and explain, a charge back is demanding your bank to re-compensate you at a lose to the developer, while also damaging the companies credibility and your ability to ever purchase from them again. While EA is honoring all refund requests, they will not tolerate charge backs which should be a last ditch resort for getting your money back in a case of legitimate fraud.

Perhaps with the sheer controversy surrounding Sim City’s botched launch, EA is now offering a free game, from a list of games, to anyone who bought Sim City. The list includes the following games:

Perhaps partially related to the string of bad press following many of EA’s decisions and comments as of late, John Riccitiello, CEO of EA, has handed in his letter of resignation which opens with the following:

Dear Larry,

I hereby offer my resignation as CEO of Electronic Arts effective with the end of our Fiscal Year 13 on March 30, 2013.

This is a tough decision, but it all comes down to accountability. The progress EA has made on transitioning to digital games and services is something I’m extremely proud of. However, it currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued in January, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. EA’s shareholders and employees expect better and I am accountable for the miss.

An internal memo issued to all EA employees and released by the Wall Street Journal has stated that Larry Probst will become Executive Chairmen as the board of directors decides who shall take John’s place as CEO. In the memo John again holds himself completely accountable for EA’s shortcomings in the financial year, and thanked all employees of the company for their hard work.

Peter Moore has also come in on the conversation, going to facebook to defend John Riccitiello’s contributions to the gaming industry and posting the following comment reposted from Games Industry International.

“Kotaku reveling in what, due to their self-smugness, they don’t realize is a sad day for our industry, which is the platform on which they actually make money. John not only helped propel our company and interactive entertainment into new experiences, thus enticing millions of new people to become ‘gamers’, his work leading the ESA in recent years has helped ensure that we don’t experience the fate of the music industry,” Moore said of his former boss. “Sad loss for all of us who had the pleasure of working with him as we emerged from The Burning Platform.”

Other members within the games industry also came to John’s defense, including former Epic Games boss Mike Capps, and Former IGN editor Hilary Goldstein.

In a somewhat odd twist EA’s stock prices have risen from just under $14 a share to $19 a share, with shareholders having been constantly disappointed with EA and John’s performance in the market, and now showing their support for his resignation. Analysts speaking to the shareholders also had a lot to say on the subject of John’s tenure as CEO of EA, with a few highlights to follow:

“Riccitiello’s first and biggest mistake was underestimating how deeply the rot had set in at EA when he assumed leadership; we do not believe his successor will face a similar problem,” Doug Creutz wrote in a note to investors.

“Riccitiello’s reign has often been a difficult one for the company; shareholders have seen EA’s stock lose more than half its value since he became CEO in 2007. The company has missed earnings guidance on a semi-regular basis and ceded market leadership to Activision Blizzard. We think the first half of Riccitiello’s term was marked by flawed strategy while the latter half was impacted by spotty execution.

That first years of Riccitiello’s years at EA included expensive acquisitions, too many games in production and time wasted chasing the Nintendo Wii, followed by a failed reboot of the Medal of Honor franchise and most recently a shambolic launch of SimCity.

However it wasn’t all bad news, as the analyst Doug Creutz continues:

“But there are highlights to Riccitiello’s reign that leave the company in a strong position compared to other big box publishers – the growth of digital retailer Origin, solid franchises like Battlefield and mobile success with titles such as The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Real Racing.

“We do think Riccitiello is leaving the company better positioned than it was when he became CEO (and certainly in much better shape than it was 4-5 years ago),” wrote Creutz.

“The company’s core line-up is now focused down to a manageable amount of solid franchises, buttressed by increasingly successful downloadable content offerings, while the company’s mobile business is number one in the US and appears to be gaining meaningful momentum.”

I know this was a lot to get through and I understand if not all of it was read but it certainly makes for an interesting story, and perhaps a new chapter in EA’s future for better or ill. I am certainly curious to your thoughts on any of the subjects covered in this post.

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EA got a long bad history, beginning with the closing of Bullfrog, Origin and Westwood. Yes Origin was an independent Dev, I really feel sorry for them, being now the most hated download platform.
They destroyed many great games like C&C, Mass Effect(DLC spamming…), Medal of Honor, Need for Speed, even Battlefield, by buying DICE 2006 and making the game less tactical…
John Riccitelo was the worst CEO ever. Look at the stock prices before 2007(he was the CEO in 2007), and today… You see a really big difference.
EA must get bankrupt, or at least they must listen to the community, because there is where the money grows.
By boycotting every EA game, we could actually change EA’s mind. But we all know, that will never gonna happen. As example look at Activision. Releasing always the same game with tiny differences. And it works…

One or two people don’t rule the system (corporation). In most cases the scapegoats are just relocated to other positions within the system, while making this resignation show, sincere regrets and whatnot.

This is what people get for trusting EA and ignoring warnings set up by their previous failures. If you want to avoid a slap in the face(and send a message to the imbeciles responsible for this incident), just don’t buy from EA.

Ritti’s resignation is a last ditch effort. It shows clearly that they’re desperate. They know we’re catching on to their bullshit and won’t tolerate it any more.

They only let people who bought it on 25 march or before get a free game. Not letting people like me, who bought this broken game after that, get a free game. Screw this. I’m not buying anymore shit from EA. No matter how good that game might be. Not even if angryjoe gave it a good review.

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I don’t get how they think they are protecting themselves with the ‘DRM’ that they keep putting forth. It isn’t going to affect people that are going to pirate games, as there are tons of talented people out there that will hack into a game and remove the DRM. Not all of them even do that because they want to steal. Some of them see the message that ‘you won’t be able to make this DRM free’, and they take that as a challenge. And another thing I want to point out. The people out there that pirate these games and get them for free because of it won’t likely buy the game at all. Very few people that pirate have no intention of buying the product at all (There are exceptions), and the reason they do it is for free entertainment. What happens when you cut that off and make a game they can’t play for free because they can’t pirate it? They’ll move on to something else they can get for free. And that isn’t even getting into the part about some people ‘pirating’ a game to try it out because the game has no demo, and some people aren’t willing to spend $60 on a game they can’t play. It is a different story with consoles, as there is the chance of renting titles. But on the PC, if there is no demo, some people just won’t commit to a purchase like that on a ‘perhaps I’ll like this’. I just want to be clear that I don’t support piracy. I support the companies out there that make games that I play and enjoy. But if those companies punish me because of some ‘loss of sales’ number they pull out their ass… I won’t just sit back and pretend I’m not upset over it.

Not THAT long Joe. A bit of back round info first: 33yrs old and been playing games since 1985. Games on CPU, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, N64, PS, PS2, XBOX and XBOX 360. Have a Masters in Business Management from WP Carey school at ASU with a minor in Mass Communications and currently a CFO for a multi million dollar company in Phoenix. EA in my experience is a company that grew into corporate America with a sole focus on the almighty buck. Rather than what made them great in the beginning; focus on creating and releasing great games. That profit over quality mentality has now put them in tremendous trouble with the honest gamers of the world. We do NOT appreciate being fleeced. Example, Bioware’s acquisition and the reduction of their game quality: Dragon Age II and ME3 to name a couple. Typical budget applied with release date determined for maximum profitably. Except oops, only good games sell well. Forgot that bit didnt’ they? Corporate Commander would be proud but now its going to start biting them in the ass. Battlefield 3 is all about the $$. But at least they didn’t market it as a total experience, they marketed it for what it is, a multiplayer game with a single player warm up campaign. I was personally pissed at the “FOUR HOURS!” SP, but Joe didn’t seem to mind. Multiplayer is high margin and ruining games. Look at AC3? Didn’t I mention ME3? Yeah, screwed the ending up so they could make $$ on multiplayer. FPS are the worst offender, but the high school kids love it, I know because that’s all I really run into when playin Halo 4. MOHW, not a very good game but pretty good MP offering… I’m done supporting MP until the core games get the attention with MP being a bonus. Oh, and DRM, its about control. That’s it, control for $$. When are they going to understand that its about a good/great game that sells cause we WANT it not cause we NEED it. NO….. NO! How successful was Skyrim? And without ANY multiplayer. And the former CEO is a scapegoat taking one for the team. What is his severance package? Substantial I’ll bet. I’d take a hit for several million up front. Wouldn’t you?

the mistake was simple EA tried to punish gamers, the mentality was formed by the the loss prevention belief that every customer is a thief. It is this mind set that is putting off older gamers like myself, i’m tired of being punished or having my right to due process diminished because one asshole decided to crack a game and a bunch of other assholes followed suit, its a greivance against the industries mentallity, that was first formed by EA and sony, and its a mentality that is permeating all business across the world. the other problem is that this luxury is getting more and more expensive and it constantly seems like we are being milked like cattle.

Kyle Eggers i somewhat agree with you but Tor has not been a bust at least not now with the F2P (which i know the restrictions are awful) the game has made mad bank i know about 8 people who are subbed and have spent over 100 dollars on the market thingy on it. And its also the 3rd or 2nd most played mmo behind WoW and maybe GW2 Can’t remember read it in article. I hate EA but you gotta stop being butthurt about everything they realese.

mass effect 3 is what sent me over the edge it wasn’t until that god awful game was released that I realized just how shitty EA’s business ethics and practices were fuck EA die you bastards and maybe we can save the industry from this inevitable crash that’s coming

Hopefully this will be a step closer to the horrible ONLINE ONLY DRM. The only people this DRM hurts are the ones who actually buy video games. Those who are dead set on pirating games won’t care about Online Only DRM because as was the case with Simcity they will always find a way to beat it.

No one like Origin, and unless through the Xbox or PS station network most of EA’s online ventures have been a bust, SWTOR and Warhammer Online, Origin has messed up many times which all prove that. EA need to hing Blizzard or Valve to do their online LOL. That won’t happen but they need to buy or make a studio just for online. Simcity wasn’t tested it was pushed out to fast, it was a game released before it was done and EA is and will continue to pay for that in the future. EA has many of the best franchises and don’t use them. Old franchises like Lands of Lore, Dune, C&C, just to name a few. And worst of all is EA’s attitude towards their customers and the gaming community which is horrible. EA has been just out to make a fast buck, and I don’t see that changing.

Lemme just say this to all that.
a) a CEO stepping down really doesn’t mean shit in a company. Has Microsoft changed much from when Bill Gates was running it? Not really.
b) him saying that he caused a bunch of non-gamers to become such is complete supposition, and he has no way of telling. There isn’t a survey he could have taken, there isn’t an online test he could run. How does he even know this? I’m pretty sure Nintendo is a much better source for introduction to games. And Rock band, but I’m tangenting.
c) Fuck EA, that is all.

Internal to the company? Sure. But for an entity such as EA, who continues to churn out the same type of product (ie $60 games) and whose innovation is limited to their selected platforms (ie not reinventing the wheel like the iPod), not so much for the consumers.

Wonderful. EA release a predictably broken game, with no offline (which made the series famous), have that nobgoblin Moore spew bullshit on us (even blaming us for not liking their shit) have their CEO resign in disgrace to take heat off of the rest of the companys shitty practices and then prove that some people ARE stupid by having EAs stock rise. Is that mindwarpingly full of shit or is it me? Seriously dood, I think they’re trying to outdo each other on Joe’s controversy list. I’m really gettin’ tired of this, to the point of quitting games, almost. Moore’s condescending shit especially gets up my nose, considering it’s his customers he’s acting like emperor douchebag to.
It’s fucked up. Rather than do a 12 point plan on each bit above, i’ll just say that we really all did see this coming. That stings most. Also (not like it’ll actually happen), we need to find a way to financially putthe hurt on EA. They won’t change, but we might make them take us a little more seriously. Probably not, them being a bunch of vagina-warts and what not, but if you buy from EA either DON’T or weigh your options carefully. It’s only gonna get worse, believe me.

The only way is through force of arms really, Corporations in general are too powerful without powerful Government to tell them you cross the line and FORCE THEM BACK TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF SAID LINE. However the ‘Regan IS RIGHT’ crowd has weakened governmental control enough where its in reality a farce.

Either we essentially make every studio under EA’s banner go on strike for weeks (but can’t because the Publishers would simply shut the studios down for spite if its workers did so, probably essentially blacklist them afterwards as well just to put salt on the wound) or wait until the inevitable and the perfect storm arises to end its reign… which is not within our lifetimes.

The only solution will be the democratizing effect of the internet. When big name design studios start self publishing and selling on their own terms we will see the big publishers sit up and take notice. And really, in this day and age, do we even need publisher for games. They are not even pressing real tangible CDs or DVDs anymore. Practically everything is downloaded. And as for publicity, just give a couple games away to some big names on Youtube and let them have at it. Anyone seen the game Kerbal Space Program? Its amazing, being self published, and has literally HUNDREDS of free advertising from videos on Youtube.

But,,, EA have had some good games published under them. Bad company 2, Timesplitters FP, Dead Space, Mass Effect 2 (all those game series are either ruined or in development hell). If those smaller developers with the good games left, EA would be stuck with their own bullshit. If their responses to complaints were a little more published too, it could swing it a little too. If their main subsidiaries left then their marketing would ensure the rest would follow.
In short, if we could somehow drive a wedge between EA and the smaller developers working for them (where they’d likely join another corporation and do an EA trick themselves) it could hurt their production and at very least make them look like a sinking ship, which they are rapidly becoming. Investors pull support, EA gets hurt, upping it’s gouges to compensate and putting the last nail in it’s PR coffin. With enough internet support EA would take a major dent, and show what “gamers” as that douche put it can do when being shat on. Not buying from them isn’t enough. We need a plan to counter their BS and show EA and the others (Square Enix, Ubisoft) we’re not chumps who’ll buy anything.
Bad marketing is one thing but treating customers like trash is asking for it.

As a few or you may know, I am not a big fan of EA (Especially after the day when I bought a Sims Expansion, only to discover it requires Origin AFTER I bought it. Which I ended up installing only to have it delete the data for every EA game I had installed with mods in them), so this is good news for me.

Best Case Scenario: The company goes through a reform and decides to take the more customer friendly route, similar to Valve.

I’ve disliked EA for years now, it’s grown to the point when I don’t even consider them a real option to get games from (and poison to anything they touch in the gaming industry). The sheer amount of garbage consumers have to get through simply to play their awful/average games, combined with all their anti-consumer practices makes me weary of their every action (but that’s just bitter old me, nowadays I just ignore them and don’t own anything they had a hand in). And even when they do release something that seems okay, it just gets ruined by controversy of their own making (like the latest Simcity game, which I don’t own so I can’t really comment if it’s any good or not).

I’m personally quite pessimistic of any chances of reform, the underlying problems with EA isn’t really solved by simply throwing the CEO out of the job. One major issue is the fact that the company is way too beholden to investors, who are only really concerned with the bottom line (money) and seeking a safe way to get more of it. Innovation and risky, new strategies would simply be undesirable to them even if there was a desire by management to seek it out (which there doesn’t seem to be), and instead opting for safer routes which leads to more measures we as consumers simply “love” (sarcasm, for clarification) and further stagnation of the industry.

So likelihood of EA taking a more consumer-friendly route? It seems pretty unlikely from where I’m standing. Still, I’m not bagging you out @Master Vlad, I really do hope the leadership transition does something tangible to improve EA, but if not (which will probably happen, in my undying cynicism of EA), I’ll just continue as I did before and ignore them, it’s fairly easy considering what they accomplish is pretty pathetic (in my opinion), and not worth the effort and troubles to go through. My attention is to other aspects of the gaming industry that are actually innovating and trail-blazing the way forward, rather than those which are attempting to drain the lifeblood out of said industry for as long as possible.

So hopefully I got across what I wanted to say, and again @Master Vlad, I essentially agree with what you say, I just can’t really feel all that optimistic for any consumer-friendly changes on-route from our good friends at EA.

This same thing happened to me when I got a free copy of Assassins Creed 3. I had to install it and get origin and then Origin thought all my older steam copies of Assassins Creed 1 and 2 plus expansions were counterfeit and de-activated them. And I could never get EA to figure out how to turn them back on so Fuck IT!

Whoah you serious man id love to get some prove of this I never liked Origin but that sounds outright despicable. Not saying your BSing just would love an example or a link to somewhere I could find one but man if that really happened I feel so sorry for you and to think you spent hard earnt cash on those games.

EA can rot if it wasn’t for Bioware being with them I wouldn’t buy a single game of theirs.

I am sad, the gaming industry is getting more and more monopolized the products are getting steadily shoddier and shoddier even though tech and graphics improve. And almost all gamers forgive them and go back to them just because they get an old free game thrown their way. Wee.. free game..

Just remember that when ‘free’ is spoken, people would do anything for it.

That is how Pirating started. When older games became discontinued, fans would share the game so it wouldn’t die… then some idiot had to betray the trust between Corporation and Consumer and start pirating more modern games.

Since its fucking free, people go to it like moths to a flame. Because they are too cheap to simply buy it.

When revenues start dipping, corporations had to save their own asses to continue in existence.

However, this became monopolization in our times.

The Government has to break the publishers up or… things go down hill.

betray the trust between Corporation and Consumer? 60$ for simcity, really? then they gonna add 3 buildings call it dlc and sell it for another 20$. save their own asses? did you actually checked their revenue lately? and why games that dont even have a CD key in them like tomb raider, sell 1 million copies in less than forty-eight hours, you could just pirate it, no? the simple fact is that if you have a good game, then you have a fan base, if you have a fan base you will get paid. but if you try to make 300 shitty games a year and charge shit load of money for them like EA do…well GL with that.

Monopolies (and their bastard ofspring, Corporatism AKA Fascism) arise about once every 80 years. Like clockwork. 🙂

And they break up in the same way: monopolists make a bunch of bad decisions, enterpreneurs seize the day the satiate the needs and wants of society, the money moves away from monopolists which then go bust.

The government has nothing to do with this. It’s just the free market flexing it’s enormous muscles.

I remember quite fondly long ago when they used to sell games in the large boxes with full manuals (I’m speaking of PC games here of course).

Back then I would have to beg my mom for a forty dollar game, and that was usually all I was going to get for a good long while.

One day, In a store, I heard the guys there talking about the games boxes going smaller, and that the manuals would then be digital on the disk, as the CD’s were still new and held a lot of extra space on it, so they would fill that space with the soundtrack, manuals, dev diaries, wallpapers, ETC.

Beyond that, with the reduction in box size (Even just the jewel case rather than any box at all) and the fact that you wouldn’t need that higher production cost for the printing of manuals or the box production that the cost to the consumer would be reduced, looking at up to ten dollars per game cheaper (He even had the GamePro magazine stating this).

Fast forward. Now I’m paying fifty to sixty dollars a game, usually I don’t get a manual (or one that just tells you how to install the game and hit play quite often), the box is smaller, and the games are even shoddier than they were back then and even then, usually dont install anything, I have to DL the game through Steam or Origin.

All in all, they increased their profit margin. If you get the CE of a game then usually you get at least the sound track, maybe an art book or some little trinket. A few game companies will go above and beyond for their collectors editions, but even then it’s not enough to usually justify that level of cost, unless it’s some form of gimmicky item (Master Chief’s helmet that doesn’t fit anyone, or night vision goggles)

I really want to know who it was that took that once beautiful idea of lowering costs to make the games more available for all, and shat on that to make more money, and throttle them.

Remember when EA got busted by the NFL for not giving them the right amount of money for their license? They were given two options, refund their oversight to those that bought the game, or pay them. I think they are still tangled in that lawsuit, as EA doesn’t want to do either, despite the fact that they cheated everyone involved.

Dont even get me going on the companies they buy, ram their IP’s into the dirt, then gut the companies….

@lowering cost for all: First point: Steam.
Second point: games aren’t more expensive because some asshole says they are. Games take a lot more technology, time and effort now than they did back in the day. the level of detail that 3D artists need to develop, the sheer amount of code the programmers now have to deal with with now 14 buttons and 2 analog sticks, let alone things like motion control, voice command and touch screens, the amount of story and voice acting and art and all these things are way more than back in the 90’s and 80’s. I don’t completely discount your point, though, Companies don’t NEED to do this amount of work to make a good game, but that brings me back to steam.

Legion3000

March 22, 2013 at 11:13 am

simple plan: Stop buying shitty games published by outright bastards!

There are SO many awesome Indie published games out there. Take 5 minutes and peruse the indie section on steam and you will find enough awesome games to play you will melt your eyeballs.

YEEESSSSS… I knew they day would come EA would f**k up now for others to do the same and hear the real gamers cry for WTF have you with my money my game and how will you fix this you money grabbing I don’t give poo gaming.Co’s

DRM is a really stupid idea, if I rally want to pirate a game, I will find a way to do it DRM, MMO or what ever. I actually liked simcity in my younger age, so I decided to buy it, after I realized it’s a DRM and that i actually depend on their crappy server, I went and bought tomb raider 🙂 worth every penny! South park quote: “Oh well, fuck em! And fuck you too! I piss in your faces… Now lets part with that ol’ EA Sports saying… get the fuck outta my building!”

I feel the best way to tackle piracy (as much as one really can, considering it will exist regardless of any action taken against it) is mainly two-fold:

1. Build up good will from your audience, and attempt to utilize consumer-friendly practices to win them over (example, CD PROJEKT).

2. Make it convenient to buy games, also, If the service to buy convenient games is online, ensure their are other associated benefits to continue using it as well, and not simply “bloatware” that people are forced to use when installing games (example, Steam, GOG).

I’m sure there are more, specific means to deal curb piracy, but this is really the most compelling reasons I’ve found for limiting the desire to pirate games. Number 2 in particular is what basically stopped my desire to ever pirate a game again, simply due to how convenient and beneficial that Steam was as a distribution service over pirating games.

I’m not suggesting that these measures will kill piracy permanently (an impossible task), but it does a hell of a lot more to curb it while also benefiting both the company and the consumer while doing so. In contrast to intrusive-DRM (always-online for instance); which alienates and angers consumers, is ineffective in stopping pirates (and indeed, making it more convenient for them then legitimate consumers), and in some cases even drives people to pirate the game when they might not have.

Take a hint major game companies, intrusive-DRM is flawed, try working with consumers instead of against them.

Piracy is a business phenomenon that can only be combated by business methods.

First, examine the business model of a pirate: he must first obtain the game (this costs money), if there is any DRM, he must remove it (this can cost QUITE A LOT, crackers don’t work for free you know), then he must distribute it which cost A DAMN LOT!

The main battleground between a legitimate publisher and a pirate is in the distribution arena. A large pirating operation will attract the authorities and they will impose an astronomical cost to the pirate bankrupting him. So, a pirate can only ever operate a very small-scale operation. In order to attract a sufficient number of customers to keep himself solvent and profitable, he will have to significantly reduce the cost of his wares which means his margin will suffer heavily. This, in turn, puts him in the danger of going bankrupt.

I know all of this because many years ago, while I was in (high) school, I tried to run a piracy operation only to discover there is no money to be made that way. And my only cost were the CDs, there was no DRM back then.

With all that said, it may still be possible for a million small time pirates to kill a big publisher/developer. But, in that case, you have a far larger problem, in the form of “why exactly are people trading these games among themselves and why is noone buying the game from us? What has happened or been done (by us?) to elicit this development?”

The only finite solution to the piracy is for the game industry to demand money BEFORE they publish the game. AKA “artist patronage”. See Kickstarter for details.

There is no money to be made in piracy… unless your selling which hardly anyone does(the whole point is free)… therefore, no crackers/hackers get paid… and if so.. they get a small stipend only… if anything, and maybe the cost for purchasing the game… and thats a big maybe.. distribution is all online, via torrents… again free. Most cracker/hackers are just computer geeks who love playing on the computer(whether it be code, games, or code for games), and 90% of them don’t get paid. In other words, your second paragraph is spot on, unlike your first paragraph, it doesn’t cost QUITE ALOT, or A DAMN LOT. The ppl who do it either do it for free, or for very minimal gain

You raise some good points, but your thinking more on pirates attempting to resell their cracked content through physical distribution, my focus was first and foremost on effective, pro-consumer ways to curb interest in free, ONLINE piracy (where costs are subsequently lower and access nearly instantaneous).

As for the game industry demanding money from consumers (Kickstarter for example) before making a game. I just don’t really see that logically working it the effect you describe (any time soon at least) because of several reasons: first of which is the fact that the role of publishers is to provide funding to developers, they would never willingly surrender that role to crowd-funding as it would be a threat to their role and ruin them (thus, there would be no desire among publishers to embrace crowd-funding to the exclusion of all else), secondly is the high production costs associated with AAA game development which would be difficult to recoup through crowdfunders like Kickstarter, it wouldn’t be impossible, but on a regular basis? Pretty much impossible. And lastly, I don’t see how crowdfunding would specifically crush piracy for said games, There are already torrents for such games made through crowd-funding, so to suggest that it is a “finite solution” seems inaccurate from my point of view.

And as @Zach pointed out, a majority of pirates aren’t really interested in earning money through physical distribution, and instead simply crack said games and upload them on torrent sites like Pirate Bay (for virtually minimal cost).

Look at books and music. Publishers are scrambling just to make an excuse for their existence.

Matin Sanguine

March 23, 2013 at 5:25 am

@Legion3000

Heh, I certainly echo that sentiments with game publishers (EA). They have become poison, literally destroying innovation and milking their consumers, breaking people’s trust in them for a quick buck.

Fuck em, “Desperation drives Innovation”, It’s exactly because publishers (EA) have become such a burden on the industry that things like crowd-funding are starting to get popular.

Astro MacGuffin

March 19, 2013 at 8:11 pm

Awful lot of PR words when it all boils down to:

“Pay $60 for a crap product and we’ll throw in a free bag of lies.”

EA’s public relations team must do the job they’re paid to do, but the job is not doable. Reputation wise, EA is just one of the unfunny jokes of the industry. The more money you give them, the more the joke is on you.

I think this article is about to get even longer. EA is being rocked by yet another scandal. According to Time Magazine, a flaw in Origin’s security leaves all computers that have it installed accessible to hackers that could insert malicious code.

I honestly have chosen to stop supporting EA products, I wanted to get Crysis 3 just to see if mt PC could hold up and it was going to help me decide on whether my PC needs an upgrade.

But, due to the Origin requirement I really can’t install or play any modern EA PC games, I could bitch forever about Origin and become one of the many thousands of people who complain about it, but in short it’s just another program I simply don’t want on my machine. Add to that the recent news surfacing about an exploit in Origin that allows for malicious code to be injected into your machine it just adds to another reason why I simply don’t like the program itself.

True I have steam but steam at least offers me things, constant sales, a huge catalog, and more recently indie games, like Don’t Starve and Towns etc. I guess you could say you can get a virus anywhere but it’s all about risk mitigation, I should not want to have Origin IF I don’t want it.
Anyways with that out of the way, EA as a whole has been pissing me off, I personally think they are doing harm to the industry by trying too much to please stock holders, I understand they are a business but they also have to have respect for the people who give them money, like us, the gamers. So what do they do? They come out with DRM bullshit, services like Origin, and to be honest guys and I may catch hell here, but really for how a lot of DLC’s are priced, I find a lot of DLC’s are very hit and miss, some can be very good like Undead Nightmare, and lair of the shadow broker, but I think there’s far more DLC’s that were just crap compared to the very few that were “good”.

Having bought all of the Mass Effect 3 DLC’s I’m kinda underwhelmed, even the Citadel DLC which arguably is probably the best of the batch left me underwhelmed. Yeah I got to hang out with all my crew old and new, but really it just made things hurt more, I gladly would have sacrificed all three expansions, not to mention the multiplayer ones just to have a post ending DLC that maybe give me insight where the series is heading, or hell even bringing up the whole IT theory again, I felt like the ending of the game was just lacking, not starting from Harbinger’s beam but from the time you fight Kai Leng and onward, the last battle just doesn’t feel like that final battle we were all expecting. I won’t go on further but I’m still standing by the reason ME3 ending was messed up was because the ending was done by like two guys whereas in the past it was ran by a team of people, including Drew Karpyshyn and B, because I personally think EA wanted to recover profit loss from Star Wars: The Old Republic, so they pushed it out the door.

Now granted EA is not the only company guilty of practices like this, but with them publishing so many games, it has to be said that they are certainly in the spotlight for it and it’s indicative of something that’s wrong with the industry, I mean sure things like DLC on paper sound good but really they just end up being a way to make more money because stock holders can’t even wait for actual sequels to be made.

With EA it’s been one mistep over another, I personally think changing the CEO will not fix anything, I’m not even sure he was really the problem with being with, mostly because it’s the business side of the industry that’s broken to begin with. Anyways I’ve gone on long enough but fact is we need to show EA that were not to be fucked with, we deserve better treatment as customers, not business practices that keep alienating us, and sadly the only language they understand is money.

That’s the annoying part, I also grew up with EA’s games (not exclusively of course), so it’s irritating that they’ve become increasingly antagonistic at consumers years ago.

Ah well, if EA decides that treating consumers with respect and with high-quality services is too much effort for them, then fine, they’ll see what consumers will ultimately go for.

The day EA collapses will be a good one if they think they can continue with their practices, for while EA once wasn’t the asshats they are now, it’s ultimately a course of stagnation and anti-consumerism they are pioneering.

I understand their want to have ‘Always-On DRM’, because of the piracy issues, but this is insane. I had a friend who was unfortunate enough to buy this game and he said he wished he had a physical copy so he could break it in half and burn it. I very much doubt the new CEO of EA will be any significant change, but Riccitiello’s resignation is a long-awaited event by gamers unfortunate enough to buy EA’s recent titles. I really hope EA can return to producing excellent games without all this nonsense.

I am a debater, hell if I wanted to I would be able to go and be a politician if I wanted. People who don’t understand both sides would devolve into frothing fanatics of the extremes that we don’t need.

Sim City series is a guilty pleasure of mine. I announce it to the f**king world from the highest peak if it would satisfy you. Everyone else thinks the Gaming business is like the Movie Business. Those who think that way are idiots for thinking like that.

The Movie Business has this:

Theater—>DVD release—->possible syndicated release on some channel or made into a series

The Videogaming industry only has this:

Factory New Games ‘off shelf’

This is why they keep going draconian to the rental/used game pie and the pirates. They only have ONE line of funding. The movie industry has at least THREE. They have a ‘buffer’ in the other two. Gaming does not. With prices of AAA games going only HIGHER due to the graphic escalation that they decide is worth more than anything else, even marketing mind you, the 20/80 split puts lots of RISK on the Publisher’s shoulders.

If the game doesn’t sell, the Publisher gets fucked over because it would make them incompetent in the eyes of investors (who WANT a return in their investment). Basically Incompetence leads to no new investors or EVEN LOSE THEM, that means more lay offs/’tightening the belt’ effects which means it would spiral out of control. Add into the ‘Moral Guardian Overreaction’ stick that happens every time a major shooting goes on that usually guns after Video Games, stifling of the industry is not if but WHEN. It has happened. Events outside the developers’ control caused a perfect storm to fuck them over without them realizing it. That was the turn of the century when the Democrats lost Congress and the White House and during their superiority mini-era they started to tear down logical safeguards…

In Europe laws are in place to prevent such a thing from happening (in addition to a specific work-week limit for developers). However, due to NON-LOGICAL REPUBLICANS! (i.e. ultra-cons, those under the control of ‘special interests’ and not the people who elect them, and their ilk) who go towards the pro-Corporate/CULTURE POLICE! stance while the NON-LOGICAL DEMOCRATS! (i.e. the ultra-liberals and their ilk) tend to be… insane if not schizophrenic at times but tend to go more towards CULTURE POLICE! in stance… shit has to give and its sadly the entertainment industry that pays the price.

However, that leaves us with the Moral Guardians. Only thing I can say is that they will plague the industry for all coming times. The more power they get, the worse the stifling becomes… and it leads to those who act like Corporate Commander to gather all the power they want over developers (henceforth known as the ‘Bottom Line Mafia’ or BLM).

In the end, DRM was first designed to protect investments. As the DRM escalated, the pirates escalated. It has become a lensman arms race between the two. This ‘Always Online DRM’ is part of the apex of DRM side.

Now DRM is HURTING THE CONSUMER… but it’s the CONSUMERS that are (at least) partial fault that support these pirates. It might not be you or me but someone, somewhere, someWHEN is grabbing a pirated game. The Companies like EA and Activision lost their TRUST (and trust is a two way street people!) in their consumers because, when given the chance, the consumer would rather pirate a game than actually buy it (essentially: FREEGAME!YEY! over ‘I spent my hard earned cash to buy this game and ITS AWESOME!’). It takes two (or in this case THREE) to tango. Everyone is at fault and since these guys are not going to give that trust back any time soon, look in the mirror on keeps this arms race going.

The laws in Europe, especially the laws and regulations of the European Union do not actually exist. As in, they exist, but when push comes to showe, the Powers That Be claim “special circumstances” and abolish the rule of law.

The latest example of this is the Cypriot FUBAR where the law was brushed aside. And just so we’re clear: the law demands an order of taking losses, starting with shareholders (equity), followed by junior bonds and only at the end do the deposits get bitten. The EU (and IMF, strangely) abolished this law and demanded that loss-taking begin with deposits and progress in the opposite order.

Beside Cyprus, this dynamic can also be seen at literally EVERY turn of the European crysis.

And as for piracy – people do what makes most economic sense. If the perceived value of a game is less that the money the publisher wants for it, people will find a way to discount the game. In a different arena, if the publisher is slow to make the game available and pirates are faster, guess which the customer is going to buy? The one that is a hassle or the one that is not? Yet a third arena is the fact that US prices are WAY overbloated relative to the prices in the rest of the world. And this is important – 2/3 of humanity lives in Asia and cannot afford the prices the US publishers are charging, but have ZERO problems affording the prices pirates are charging. How much more money will, say EA, make if it charges $60 for a game in US but $10 for that same game on that same day in Indonesia? Such a low price would, concievably, make it competitive to the pirates.

Ultimately, if the game maker can not afford to produce a game at a price and avability the customers are willing to pay for, that that publisher is going to go bust one way or the other. Blaming pirates for what is ultimately a free-market phenomenon is stupid at best.

And I disagree that the game maker/publisher has only one revenue stream. One word for you: MERCHANDISE!

I think that, when it comes to piracy, publishers fall for the assumption that every pirated game = a lost sale. That simply isn’t true. If the statement that people will always choose “free over fee” was correct, no game would ever sell in the millions, since every game is available on torrent sooner or later.
The fact is that most people will pay for a game, if they want to play it badly enough, but at the same time there are very few who can actually afford to purchase every single game they have an interest in. As a result people pick and choose which games they are going to purchase, and which ones they are not going to spend any money on.
Some may pirate those games, but in many cases this also means that they wouldn’t buy the game, even if there was no way to play it otherwise.
In short: DRM is a measure to regain a market that doesn’t even exist in the volume it often gets plagatized.
Sure, piracy is a problem for publishers, but I think that the impact it poses to their sales is bloated out of proportion.
DRM is a double edged blade with both sides biting into the same direction: not only does it fail to prevent piracy, it actually encourages it; plus it disgruntles legitimate customers who may opt not to buy games from a specific publisher anymore.

Let’s not forget that especially when it comes to always-on-DRM, the “protection” actually costs quite a bit. Not only lost sales because the DRM itself or because of problems with playing the game, but also the costs of running the servers themselves. I simply cannot imagine that always-online DRM is good business.

Btw: I also wonder if anybody has thought of the environmental costs of running all these servers for the simple purpose of controlling customers.

You know, as much as people complain about EA and all the horrible crap they do, EA games are pretty damn good. Granted, the companies they lord over make the best of their line-up, but would BioWare be able to create epic games like Mass Effect without EA’s backing? For all the crap people filing at EA, they have raised game production in the US and Canada to pretty amazing levels, letting us rival Japan’s former status as the only region making “epic” games.

The only thing that really upsets me about all of this is that EA will now most likely go into a hiring freeze for a couple months while they sort out new financial an management issues. Maxis, for sure, is closed off to new employees. There goes about half the job posts for us in the business. Shitty day for game contract workers.

Going forward, ignore the stock market. For a few years now, the stock market has been divorced from reality. Even Bank of America is beggining to admit so in public. Also, EA missing its guideline is not (only) the consequence of Sim City, it has more to do with both the US and world economy still being f**ked up and getting worse fast.

But otherwise, yeah. Until a bunch of (big) companies go bust because of always-online, the industry will keep pushing always-online.

I reiterate my opinion that the only way to really fix the gaming industry is to have it populated by numerous publisher+developer combo companies. I believe that the best way to fund them is to use the “artist patronage” system perfected during the renessaince. Kind of like Kickstarter, only done by numerous companies instead of just one.

Don’t blame them. They see the need for DRM because they don’t have multiple avenues of revenue that the Movie Industry has. They have ONE avenue and that’s it. It’s normal that one has to do it so they can keep the investment.

However there is a line here. Always-Online DRM evolved because the companies require more and more draconian measures to stop pirates from making them lose their investment. It has DEvolved into such a quagmire that the people just go to the pirates anyway…

The thing is that the measure in which piracy directly affects their income is intangible it is something they cannot measure because they cannot possibly tell that a pirate equals a sale.

What they can measure is how much of the market is affected by secondary purchases, the used game market. The push to draconian DRM is more accurately a push to prevent resale, borrowed games, and the like as well as have them be able to prevent things like game modifications so they can more readily monetize DLC.

SimCity for example had quite a few paid DLC that were essentially cheats. It would be hard to sell this if the game didn’t have DRM because mods would exist to allow it in game.

Pirates are just an excuse because they are an easy target that no one will argue that they aren’t worth taking down. What they are really after is the average gamer’s money.